The Only Real Question Is…
By Mitch Berg
…what kind of pollyanna-ish rock have the other 30% been hiding under for the past fifty years?
The “First Amendment Center” – a media puff center – survey shows 70+% of America believes the media is biased:
The 2015 State of the First Amendment Survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center and USA Today [shows] that only 24 percent of American adults agree with the statement that “overall, the news media tries to report the news without bias,” while 70 percent disagree.
When the question was asked last year, 41 percent agreed, a 17-point difference.
“These are discouraging results for those of us who have spent our careers in journalism,” Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center, wrote in an op-ed for USA Today on Thursday. “In 23 years in newsrooms, I saw consistent and concerted efforts to get stories right. Clearly, the public’s not convinced.”
Ken Paulson must think people are idiots.
One can get a story right, and still be intensely biased.
This blog gets the stories right (within the limits imposed by writing a blog that is not a full time job) – but there’s no mistaking my bias. If you are a liberal reading this blog, you are confronted (if you’re not an idiot) by the fact that the facts have a conservative, free market, pro-liberty bias – and I’m going to make sure you read them.
Bias needn’t be a bad thing – when you read European newspapers, you know which side they’re on, and can judge them based on whether they get the facts straight.
American media are not only biased, but often get way too many facts wrong – or fail to present relevant facts – entirely on political grounds.
You can “get the facts straight”, and still only present the sliver of the story that makes sense for your agenda. It’s basic rhetoric.
And CNN, CBS, the Strib and NPR all do it.
So what are that other 30% smoking?
July 8th, 2015 at 7:25 am
You mean like last week when the St Paul PP printed a NYT story on South Carolina, and said “many in Congress voted against the Civil Rights act, including some Democrats”. No, all who voted against it were Democrats.
Get it. The default view is that anyone against civil rights are Republicans, but in that case, a few were Democrats.
July 8th, 2015 at 10:23 am
Kerri Miller on MPR is the worst when it comes to bias. Her contempt for people who don’t share her views can actually be tasted through the radio waves.
July 8th, 2015 at 11:54 am
You know, the media always have been biased, but it didn’t matter as much when any high school graduate would learn logic whether or not he was going to college. Then the obvious questions come to you.
For that matter, I wonder how much reporting would improve if logic were added to core curriculum in J-school…..there are so many times when I’m basically screaming at the paper or radio saying “ask the obvious question!”.
July 8th, 2015 at 11:59 am
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July 8th, 2015 at 12:01 pm
I used to think bias was OK as long as it was clear; but I have changed my mind.
During the industrial revolution, the media was overtly biased, but it wasn’t the danger it is today. In 1900, many people couldn’t read well, and most couldn’t afford to buy a newspaper every day…the bias fell on the deaf ears of the successful.
Today, we have the internets, and every drooling moron in the country is exposed to biased media. Their ears are open and their heads are empty, just waiting to be filled up with BS.
The only BS I want those empty heads filled with is conservative, pro-American BS.
July 8th, 2015 at 12:24 pm
My old college journalism prof once said (paraphrased), “the news – in many papers, can be found on the jump-page – in the 16th paragraph.”